


Self and Solace

by toosolidcuuj



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, Giving Up, Mental Health Issues, The Search comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toosolidcuuj/pseuds/toosolidcuuj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My personal headcanon on what Azula did at the end of The Search.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self and Solace

“You have your mother’s face. So beautiful, yet so willing to throw it away.”

“I don’t care about beauty.” In the past it may have been a lie. She was never as superficial as certain traitorous acrobats, but she did have her vanity. But vanity was a luxury only perfect princesses could afford, and Azula wasn’t one any longer.

Not that it mattered whether it was a lie. Azula was a good liar. (Wasn’t she? Or had Mother taken that too?)

No, Mother hadn’t taken anything from her. Mother had forgotten her. Nobody had conspired against her. Azula had failed of her own accord. She wasn’t the perfect princess she thought she was. She was weak, like Zuko.

Azula. Weak.

 _Weak_.

Not her.  _Azula_ wasn’t weak.  _She_ wasn’t Azula anymore. She had stopped being Azula when she had failed to prevent Zuko’s escape from the Boiling Rock, when she had miscalculated Mai and Ty Lee’s intentions. She had stopped being Azula when her brother had challenged her to an Agni Kai, and almost won. She had stopped being Azula when that Waterbending peasant had chained her to the ground. The girl Ozai had left behind with the empty title  _Firelord_ was not Azula.

What did it matter what she did with the face she wore - when it wasn’t even hers to throw away?

“Give me a new face,” she told the spirit. “Erase me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr on 3/14/14.


End file.
